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So, um, anyone who has known me for a long time (a few of you on my friendslist) knows one of my fannish philosophies is "Slash can be feminist, but isn't INHERENTLY feminist." I've said it so often that I haven't felt the need to say it for a really long time. Plus, I hadn't written any fanfics since 2006. But now I am writing again, and some of the comments of geek blogosphere feminists got me thinking about it once more.
I'd thought about it first when I read one wanky feminist (from the radical side of the spectrum, I say this as a qualifier -- not as a judgment on radical feminism) whose name I don't want to repeat saying that slash wasn't feminist because the female writers repeated the violence often seen in mainstream pornography, and that they were turning men into sex objects. Another, more mainstream feminist also repeated the violence complaint.
I thought of addressing their arguments, but decided eventually to let it go and forget about it. Mostly because of this. But then I read this, which is about Twilight but reminded me of some of the more annoying "slash is feminist" arguments.
This last part is one of my favorite things about the books. They’re all about female desire. Teenage female desire. Yes, there’s an underlying message that abstinence is the only safe way to handle sexuality–vampirism and werewolf-ism both being metaphors, mostly, in these books, for male sexuality–but Bella is the one who pushes for premarital sex, both literally and in the metaphoric sense, premarital vampirism.
These may sound like two divergent topics, but they tie together, I swear.
( Blah blah blah ... )
I'd thought about it first when I read one wanky feminist (from the radical side of the spectrum, I say this as a qualifier -- not as a judgment on radical feminism) whose name I don't want to repeat saying that slash wasn't feminist because the female writers repeated the violence often seen in mainstream pornography, and that they were turning men into sex objects. Another, more mainstream feminist also repeated the violence complaint.
I thought of addressing their arguments, but decided eventually to let it go and forget about it. Mostly because of this. But then I read this, which is about Twilight but reminded me of some of the more annoying "slash is feminist" arguments.
This last part is one of my favorite things about the books. They’re all about female desire. Teenage female desire. Yes, there’s an underlying message that abstinence is the only safe way to handle sexuality–vampirism and werewolf-ism both being metaphors, mostly, in these books, for male sexuality–but Bella is the one who pushes for premarital sex, both literally and in the metaphoric sense, premarital vampirism.
These may sound like two divergent topics, but they tie together, I swear.
( Blah blah blah ... )
